Avid Reader Mag Stella Edition

March 2012 Celebrating Australian women writers.

Guest essayists: Sophie Cunningham, Benjamin Law, Kari Gislason, Wesley Enoch, Anthony Mullins

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CelebRate a Stella year foR Australian women writers in 2012

Our Favourite Albums by Australian Women Clare Bowditch & the New Slang, Holly Throsby, Washington, Seeker Lover Keeper, Sarah Blasko 193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU

Staff picks

Fiona Stager

Christopher Currie

Foals’ Bread Gillian Mears $33.00 In honour of the fact that this magazine is dedicated to the Stella Awards I have chosen the latest book by one of Australia’s finest writers, Gillian Mears, whose earlier books include the novels The Mint Lawn and The Grass Sisters. Even though I read them a long time ago, just thinking about both books reminds me of the deeply unsettling power of Mears’s writing.

I’ve never been much into horses. Never went though a pony stage as a child. But that hasn’t stopped me from being profoundly moved

by Gillian Mears’ latest book. Mears herself has a great affinity not just with horses but with the great horsemen and showjumpers of rural Australia of the last century Foal’s Bread is set in the hard living area of rural New South Wales.

It’s hard country and that makes for hard people. But this is a love story.

A young motherless girl with the odd name of Noah falls in love with the legendary showjumping young horseman Roley Nancarrow of the “Nancarrows west of Wirri”. It’s just after WW1 and the legacy of that war is still being felt and already the fear of another war hovers. Noah and Roley create a family and form a dream to have their own Nancarrow team of champion showjumping horses.

Mears has written a powerful story imbued with almost mystical power of the land, of memory and the bonds born in blood and sweat. Noah and Roley want to be the highest of showjumpers. This is a story about what continually grounds them and grounds their passion.

-reviewed by Fiona Stager

Floundering Romy Ash $27.95 You’re unlikely to find a more compelling debut novel this year.

In Floundering, Romy Ash tells the story of two brothers, Tom and Jordy, who are whisked away from their grandmother by their estranged mother Loretta, on a road trip across the country to the uncertain promise of a new life. This new life is a run-down caravan park on the west coast, the culmination of an expertly drawn picture of a fractious family roadtrip. The caravan park is the exquisitely sad purgatory for the two boys, where neglect is a new fact of life, and something far more sinister lingers.

This exquisitely tense narrative is a masterclass in voice, with Tom narrating his family’s unravelling life with the unique perspective of a young mind. Floundering is a held breath, and should be read in a single sitting, letting the delicate horror of the narrative pull you along.

If this novel is anything to go by, Romy Ash is a voice to watch out for.

Highly recommended.

-reviewed by Christopher Currie

Anna Hood

Krissy Kneen

The Light Between Oceans M.L. Stedman $32.95 (APRIL 2012) Tom and Isabel Sherborne live a quiet and isolated life on Janus Rock, a small island off the Western Australia coastline. Tom tends their lighthouse while Isabel makes their poor yet comfortable house a home.

Their lives are punctuated by visits from the store-boat that makes the trip to them once every 3 months, and it could be years between visits to the mainland. Yet they love their remoteness and even their recent personal tragedies make them adore their slice of paradise even more.

Yet a surprise arrival of a dinghy carrying a deceased man and, miraculously, a crying baby, sets in action a series of events that changes their lives dramatically. This debut novel by Australian author M.L. Stedman is a triumph. I felt every chilly wind that swept in from the sea and over Janus Island, I rejoiced in the beauty of their simple lives and suffered along with them through their misfortunes. With equal doses of mystery and love story set against the harsh and majestic Australian coastline, it will appeal to many readers, especially those who enjoy Tim Winton and Janet Turner Hospital.

-reviewed by Anna Hood

Sea Hearts Margo Lanagan $20.00 I don’t read fantasy. I need to start by getting this straight. Some people love the genre, and when I was a teenager I did too, overindulging to the point of not ever wanting to read another fantasy novel again.

With this in mind, I came to Sea Hearts a little reluctantly. I knew Margo Lanagan could write. I had been surprised by her last novel Tender Morsels, startled, mainly by her play with language which seemed to eclipse some of the fantasy elements of the story. Sea Hearts is even more engaging that Tender Morsels. There is a fantasy of sorts underpinning the book, but Sea Hearts plants its footprint firmly in the realm of Myth and therefore in the real hopes and fears of humankind.

It draws on the legend of the Selkie, gentle sea women who step out of their seal skins to raise families with fishermen, spending their lives longing for a world they have left behind. In Margo’s skillful hands we are woven a tale that resonates with so much in our real lives, that feeling that we often have that we do not belong in this world, a longing for something that is missing from our hearts, a certain melancholy that we all experience at one time or another, the idea that love is temporary and that no matter how strong a relationship can be there is always a longing for something more. Lanagan presents her story with all the linguistic beauty of a Michael Ondaatje novel. The story is divided between the characters who narrate it. Her characters take this simple myth and each of them presents a different facet of the story. Told side by side the perspectives illuminate each other providing a richness to the tale that would not be there if the story were told from only one perspective. Sea Hearts is an assured novel told by a writer at the top of her game.

-reviewed by Krissy Kneen

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Trent Jamieson

Kev Guy

James Butler

Helen Bernhagen

And So it Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life

Blue Nights

Charles J. Shields $39.95

Joan Didion $28.00

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 is one of my favourite novels. It’s a very human, carefully messy, existentialist take on life and war and everything. So I guess it’s no surprise that Kurt Vonnegut’s life was just as chaotic.

“Do not go gentle into that good night...Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Although these are the words of poet Dylan Thomas, I could not help but conjure these lines as I began Joan Didion’s latest memoir, Blue Nights. It’s title refers to the long evening twilight of the summer solstice where the sky is tinged with illuminate blue, leading you to believe that just perhaps the day will never end, perhaps the light will never die — but it does end, as all days do.

And So it Goes separates the man from the fictional construct in his books. We’re left with a picture of a man who never quite matches up with what people expected him to be. Not as hip or as counterculture as his books, not as left wing as people imagined (he rather liked the good life and the stockmarket) Vonnegut comes across as a bitter, disappointed man late to fame and then confused by it. And let’s not even start discussing his relationships!

If you’re at all interested in the writing process it’s a fascinating, heartening and terrifying read, particularly concerning the genesis of Slaughterhouse 5.

Kurt Vonnegut was a man who didn’t quite know how to live in the world. Which makes him like everybody else, I guess, and which makes this book extremely comforting or depressing. In every biography people live, dream, fail, succeed, and ultimately die. And So it Goes is one of the better ones.

-reviewed by Trent Jamieson

The Last Thread

Blue Nights is, at it’s core, an extended discussion of endings. What begins as a reflection on the seven year anniversary of Didion’s late daughter Quintana Roo’s wedding soon becomes a recounting of Quintana’s last moments in a hospital bed. Didion talks also of the sudden death of her husband while Quintana lay comatose as a result of acute pneumonia, all the while relaying her fears of old age and her nostalgia for times less dark. These darker periods of Didion’s life seem so invested in this book that the prose itself becomes heavy and dense with sadness. At times it feels Didion is slicing so close to the bone that when nerves are stuck it is fatal.

Unsurprisingly those looking for a happy ending will not find it here, but for fans of memoir, of heady, quality prose and of the previous works of Joan Didion, Blue Nights will linger in thought after you’re done. At the time of writing, Blue Nights is still on my mind — seemingly never ending like the blue-steeped twilight as the solstice sun encroaches on skyline.

- reveiwed by James Butler

Michael Sala $24.95 Roman à clef is a French term for a ‘novel with a key’, or a novel about a real life; autobiography fictionalised. The ‘key’ may be produced by the author using a range of literary devices. For Michael Sala the key to The Last Thread is his beautifully crafted narratives.

The Last Thread is told in two parts. Firstly, it is the story of a young boy Michaelis dealing with life’s constant upheavals created by his mother’s yearning for a better life, his unemotional older brother and the torment of his bullying step-father. Emigrating from the Netherlands to Australia in the 1980s the culture shock is stark and life is difficult for all. It was a mistake. After a short period returning to the Netherlands Michaelis’ mother realises she has made another mistake and returns to Australia again moving many times before settling in the working class suburbs of Newcastle. Life, it seems, for Michaelis’ mother is a series of mistakes.

The narrative of the second part of the novel is told in the first person where Michael, now a man, a father and partner reflects on life and assesses his future. Even with age Michael’s life is no less emotional than the boy’s and Sala has laid his life bare for all to see. Here we are told other family stories that impact on the making of the man and the decisions about his future.

The Scribblings of a Madcap Shambleton Noel Fielding $32.95 PB The Scribblings of a Madcap Shambleton is the the latest creation by one half of the hilarious and talented Mighty Boosh team. This book showcases Noel Fielding’s talent not just as a comedian but an incredible artist. Fielding’s art channels the creative influences of Henri Rousseau, Roy Lichtenstein and Salvador Dali, through the comedian’s strange and singular, not to say surreal mind.

Some anecdotes seem autobiographical, others just plain jive, some paintings distinguishable and others a tiny bit baffling. The art is fantastic and any Boosh fans will be interested to see ideas that will have been planted into the Boosh series.

By no means an autobiography, more of a beautiful and fun look at the inner workings of Noel Fielding’s art and mind. Who knew a French spider could die of a broken heart or that Fielding himself grew up in the Jungle with Bryan Ferry?

The success of The Last Thread is that Sala is a deft writer whether the story is autobiographical or fiction or both.

Hilarious and beautifully produced, the book is a visual feast which will delight and entertain Fielding’s dedicated fans.

- reviewd by Kevin Guy

-reviewed by Helen Bernhagen

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Staff Picks

Nellie Godwin-Welch

Verdi Guy

Sarah Deasey

Jack Vening

This Beautiful Life

The Fault in Our Stars

Helen Schulman $25.00

By John Green $19.95

A fascinating read that reflects our modern, sexualised culture, kids growing up too fast and the consequences of when someone’s privacy is unintentionally severely breached. This is the story of the Bergamots Liz and Richard and their two children, a well-to-do family who live in New York and live a seemingly privileged lifestyle. However, their lives are turned upside down when their son Jake receives a sexually explicit clip from a girl he turned down at a party one night, which he forwards onto his friends and quickly spreads all over the internet. Jake is suspended from school, Liz’s social standing among the school mums is challenged and Richard’s job becomes at risk. The destruction of their family becomes an imminent risk as the situation slides out of control and threatens to destroy their marriage, children and their place in the community. Helen Schulman in This Beautiful Life has created a nightmarish concept, all the more chilling because it could happen to absolutely anyone as an impulsive or ill-judged decision, where a mere tap of a key leads to disastrous consequences. Not only is this a good warning to teenagers of today, it makes a great read that can be devoured in a few sittings.

The Fault in Our Stars is John Green’s best work yet. Heartbreaking and humorous this novel deals with themes of love, life and death. The story is told through Hazel Grace Lancaster, a strong and witty sixteen year old living with terminal cancer. From the first page you get a sense of Hazel’s character as she says ‘she devotes quite a lot of [her] abundant free time to thinking about death.’ Hazel’s life is turned upside down during a cancer support session when she meets Augustus Waters.

Augustus and Hazel’s love story is a unique one as they question whether they will be remembered, loved and leave their mark on the world. It is best not to know the story line as it will keep you guessing and is truly difficult to put down. All you need to know is that John Green is an incredible writer and the book will have you weeping and laughing at the same time. The New York Times has called Green ‘damn near genius’ as he ‘writes incredible, honest truths about the secret, weird hearts of human beings.’ I was so engrossed by Hazel’s story and it left a real impression about the joys of love and devastation of cancer.

- reviewed by Verdi Guy

-reviewed by Nellie Godwin-Welch

Outlaw Album Daniel Woodrell $34.95 From the author of the Winter’s Bone comes an unnerving collection of stories of searching, doubt, and desperation in the wonderful “country noir” (his own words) style for which Daniel Woodrell has garnered so much acclaim.

Grim and intricate, seemingly cold but deceptively tender, Outlaw Album is, in nature, brief, almost transient — each story has finished just as we’re realising how it has begun — but with a depth that extends far beyond its few pages. Woodrell creates in the reader the same wilting longing and quest for peace that each of his characters face in their own way: An aging husband searches for the reasons behind a break-in that lead to him killing a disturbed soldier; a veteran attempts to resume a fragile real-world life; a camp-site proprietor is challenged by his past to defend his present. Its characters and their lot are on the fringes of morality or emotional responsibility and Woodrell wastes no time in visiting their darkest corners.

Woodrell writes blindingly well – more than once you’ll find yourself flipping through previous stories to find particular turns of phrase – but it’s almost to a fault. His use of language at times becomes saturated in itself, but is nevertheless so beautiful that it couldn’t dislodge you if it tried.

Perhaps more than anything, The Outlaw Album laces a particular haunting spirit throughout itself that allows each story, while being unrelated, to be part of each other’s picture: a collage of crippled pasts and uncertain futures, longing, death, and, undercutting it all, love.

I don’t think I’ve ever read such a striking collection of stories.

- reviewed by Jack Vening

Jack Holmes and His Friend Edmund White $30.00 PB “I’m not gay, I’m just in love with Will.” So begins a intriguing story of love and desire, of lusting for the unobtainable. Jack Holmes is a Mid-Western Wasp living in New York in the 60s, at a time when the done thing was marry a nice Wasp debutant, whose “breakable beauty” can charm your boss during dinner in the city, and have children as soon as possible. It is not as easy for Jack however, when fresh out of college and working at an arty magazine, he soon finds himself falling for his best friend Will Wright. The denial of homosexuality is carried through several sexual encounters with men he picks up, each justified to himself in his own way. But as the “perversion” sets in, Jack doesn’t want to “get better” — he wants Will, who is as straight as he is blue blooded, and to fill the void in his heart he flits from man to man, becoming a self proclaimed libertine. In the ensuing decades Will, now married and living on an estate, apparently has everything yet is still unsatisfied and is soon propelled back into Jack’s world.

Not being familiar with Edmund White’s previous pioneering work in writing about the gay experience, I was a little shocked at some of the sex scenes, some of which are quite graphic, but settling into it realised how beautiful and intimate and funny they are, whether it be with a man and a woman, or a man with another man. It is not a perfect novel, I found myself wishing for more of a conflict with Jack and an era that would not accept him, but Jack and Will’s enduring friendship hold you to the last page.

- reviewed by Sarah Deasey

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The Avid Reader Magazine’s editors Krissy Kneen and James Butler sit across the room from each other and talk about the Stella Prize over G-Chat.

Krissy: Hey James.

James: Hello Krissy.

Krissy: Hey have you heard of the Stella awards that everyone is talking about?

James: I have indeed, seems to be quite the point of discussion in literary circles. Not unlike the conversation we’re having right now!

Krissy: I think we should talk about it in our next magazine.

James: Why don’t we go a step further and make the whole magazine Stella-based?

Krissy: That is a pretty good idea. International women’s day is coming up and it w...actually this is too inane. We could start again?

James: Yeah, that sounded like the start of an infomercial.

Krissy: OK here goes.

Hey James, why do you think we should have an award particularly for women writers?

James: I think the Stella awards are a great thing, but at the same time I can see how the argument for people saying gender based awards widen and underline a gender gap in writing which makes the whole thing a little problematic.

Krissy: Some very ballsy women writers have come out against the idea like M J Hyland. (Who is awesome.) — You type like a nanna.

James: I am quite slow. I think that when we’ve been presented with so much information proving that an inequality exists (Sophie Cunningham wrote a great article for Kill Your Darlings which provides all of the evidence — you can view it online) just sitting and not doing anything is more damaging to gender equality than the idea of a single-gender award ever could be.

Krissy: I know I would quite like to be able to win an award and as a female writer it feels impossible when you have the big guys like Peter Carey, J M Coetzee and David Malouf standing guard over all the awards. And Alex Miller is always going to win the Miles Franklin.

James: Yeah, and it is proven by sales at Avid Reader that award winners sell. So if female writers aren’t winning the big awards for whatever reason, then I think the Stella Award is a great platform to recognise great writing and help it gain a wider readership.

Krissy: I am all for it but I am also all for public debate about it. I do think it is hard for a woman writer to be considered seriously.

With my writing I feel like I am always considered a sex-writer, but Frank Moorhouse for instance is equally sexy and he gets to be a literary rock star.

James: Yeah totally, like Alex Miller writes a romance and it is literary but if a woman does it’s Mills and Boone!

Krissy: It is all about perception. If you took a piece of domestic writing by a man and told people it was by a woman I wonder if they would see it differently.

James: Sian Campbell talks about that in her essay on page 9. I think that all of these are legitimate questions that are often regarded as bourgeoisie concerns. For instance, on Susan Johnson’s blog I saw a male commenter say something along the lines of “think about the women in the Middle East and then see how you feel about being an Australian female writer.” And I just sat there and was surprised at how paternalistic and condescending that is. It’s like my Mum insisting I think of the starving children in China when I wouldn’t eat mashed potato.

Krissy: But we should ask the experts. I know I have an opinion about everything but I would be keen to hear other people’s opinions. And maybe we should hear what our customers have to say about it too, they are often the smartest people in the room.

James: Are you encouraging staunch misogynists to approach the counter and ramble?

Krissy: Let’s start a debate (or a wrestling match) James: Both sound good to me! First round K. Kneen vs B. Law. Krissy: And if it is nude wrestling we should invite Benjamin Law. James: ALREADY THOUGHT OF THAT. But not naked.

Krissy: You know me so well. bla

James: This could be a good place to end.

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193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU

THE JOY OF THEATRE IS THAT IT IS ALIVE. When you read a playscript the challenge is to remember that it was written to be spoken....the words on a page were designed to be taken in through the ears freeing up your eyes to see the action of bodies in space. The words act as a blueprint to encourage an actor to embellish, find the emotional resonances and interpret meaning for an audience. Reading scripts is a particular skill that not many people have. It takes an understanding of the potential of the ‘black squiggles on the white page’ to become flesh and blood, to breathe the same air as its audience and to inspire a communal experience of the story.

As a writer and director of theatre I think of staging a play as the final steps in a writing process. A process where the architecture, structures and designs you’ve slaved over in an isolated world of your own imagination are realised in 3D to be walked in and inhabited.

By it’s very nature theatre is collaborative and a playscript aches to be spoken out loud, hungers to be exercised in the minds of others and demands to be ‘played’ with.

Often the simplest storylines and characters make the best plays. When reading a play on the page a good script can seem too easy to read, broad or unnuanced but put into the mouths of actors and the words can show multiple meanings, deep subtext, unspoken motivations or simply demonstrate that the character is lying. An actor can turn a truth into a lie with an inflection, a raised eyebrow or by turning away.

The words on the page are not describing a state of being they are meant to embody it and the interpretative powers of the actor are meant to create the complexity for an audience. When reading a play you have the advantage of re-reading or taking your time to soak up the information but in performance the actor has only that moment; that split second to get all the complex intentions of a writer to you.

There is no rewind, no pause, no chance to think about what has just been said. The rhythm of the text and it’s delivery dictate a forward momentum. The actor must be in that moment of time so truthfully that an audience feels a collective humanity. As a group the audience sit together and knit a collective knowledge of the story and their responses. The audience is not the solo experience of a reader of a book where you can create the world as you imagine it but rather a theatre audience is a collective experience where you feel the confidence to laugh together, the power of intense communal listening or the outrage at the challenge to a social norm and the instant feedback that others feel the same way.

Playscripts are wrought from the live experience of their expression.

Reading plays challenges the reader to listen with their eyes and to see between the words.

Wesley Enoch is the artistic director of the Qld Theatre Company

Electric If you’re reading this story—it’s published in the magazine of an independent bookshop, after all—I’m guessing you love books. And if you’re anything like me, it’s possible your book obsession almost borders on the erotic. (No one is judging you.) Would I also be right in guessing you’re the type of book-lover who gets their knickers—or y-fronts—in a twist every time you read a news story about the death of the book? Hollering phrases like “I’m never going to buy an e-reader” and “WHAT IS THIS DEMON ELECTRICITY” isn’t going to help, I’m afraid. E-books are here and they’re not going away. But here’s the cool thing: they’re actually sort of great.

For the past 18 months, I’ve been travelling a lot between Asia and Australia for work. And while travel is fun, it can be a drag too. There is so much waiting: waiting in airports, waiting for flights, waiting for delays to resolve, waiting to arrive at the destination, waiting in customs, waiting for your SIM card to work, waiting for your bowels to recover from that explosive bout of food poisoning. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

And while we wait, we read.

However, it’s an absolutely shitfight to carry more than a month’s worth of books on your back. Compounding that problem, you just tend to read way faster when you’re travelling, slamming books in a single week and often in a single day. Which means you need more books.

When I travelled across Malaysia and Indonesia for two months, I packed several paperbacks with me, only to finish them and post them home in a matter of weeks. I bought more books—Richard Yates’ Eleven Kinds of Loneliness; George R.R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords; Emma Donoghue’s Room; Steven Amsterdam’s Things We Didn’t See Coming—finished them, bought even more, and soon things spiralled out of control. Clearly something had to change.

What forced me into reading e-books was actually the comedian Corinne Grant. Corinne and I were scheduled to be on a writers festival together and there was no way Allen & Unwin would be able to send me a copy of her memoir as a paperback. They sent me a Booki.sh link to her e-book instead. With steely determination, I resolved to read Corinne’s book on my iPhone. I dreaded the idea, though. Surely I would go blind. Unexpectedly, I really liked the experience. Text was expandable, and as a bonus, I could read in pitch darkness before bed.

Because I had one less thing to carry around town, I had the book in my pocket at all times. Even better. I finished it faster.

While I was away, I also realised books were being released in Australia that were impossible to buy overseas. There was our dear Krissy Kneen’s Triptych and Robert Manne’s Quarterly Essay. Encouraged by my first experience, I bought them on the Booki.sh platform too and read them over breakfast in Kula Lumpur’s breakfast market stalls. Krissy’s book isn’t for everyone—it involves sex with labradors, ponies and octopuses, after all—but there is a weird satisfaction from having such a richness of perversity fitting in the palm of your hand.

Benjamin Law is a regular contributor to frankie, The Monthly, and Qweekend, and the author of the bestselling The Family Law.

193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU

I think we’ve done that. The conversations have, over the last year, been loud, various and hotly contested. All of which is a good thing. The media has picked the debate up in a positive way rather than just attempting to polarise it, and there have been lots of blog posts, radio chats, and discussion online. tweet at @thestellaprize)...Kate Grenville ...said ‘I am living proof that a women-only prize can be career-changing. Not everyone agrees with the idea of a prize for women of course.

Bookshops across Australia – including Avid Reader — will be hosting panel discussions on the topic ‘Is women’s writing different from men’s?’

As well, we began to approach various by Sophie Cunningham corporations to gauge their interest in working with us – and there has been a lot of interest. But not, as yet, a formal commitment. The media has picked the debate up in a positive way... and there have been lots of blog posts, radio chats, and discussion online www.thestellaprize.com

Stella Update

Dreams of the Stella Prize emerged after a panel that was organised by the Melbourne independent bookshop Readings, on International Women’s Day, 2011. Preparing for that panel was quite depressing — I had been having versions of these conversations for some thirty years and the gender differential in every area of the literary world is pretty shocking. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to reel of those statistics yet again. (but if you’re interested you can find some here: http://www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com/article/a-prize-of-one’s-ownflares-cock-forests-and-dreams-of-a-common-language/) At the end of that session — it had been organised by Chris Gordon and comprised of myself, Louise Swinn, Jo Case, Monica Dux and Rebecca Starford — we decided to meet up again, informally, and keep talking about the issues in a constructive way. We talked about the ways in which we could support women writers, and increase the audience for their work. We talked about our general desire to promote awareness of the issues faced by women writers. I’m proud to say that I think we’ve done that. The conversations have, over the last year, been loud, various and hotly contested. All of which is a good thing. The media has picked the debate up in a positive way rather than just attempting to polarise it, and there have been lots of blog posts, radio chats, and discussion online. (The Stella Prize has a wall on facebook that posts links to these conversations, we tweet at @thestellaprize ).

As fate would have it, the night we first met was the night the shortlist for the Miles Franklin Award, 2011 was announced. It was an all male one shortlist, as it had been in 2009. (Leading Benjamin Law to coin the fairly wonderful term ‘cock-forest’ and Angela Meyer to talk of ‘sausage-fests’.)

We believed that in both years there had been novels by women were deserving of short listing. This got us talking about prizes and the impact they can have on a woman’s writing career. The statistics backed us on our sense that the issue was a systemic one not just the quirk of one or two given years. And so Stella was born.

Not everyone agrees with the idea of a prize for women of course.

Some women feel belittled by the suggestion that they need to be singled out for some kind of special treatment. I understand this though would argue that lots of prizes celebrate all kinds of writing for all kinds of reasons – and to do so is not undermining. I’m less understanding of commentators who think that we’re indulging in a middle class whinge.

Feminist concerns have been dismissed as middle class since, well, there were feminists, and there was a middle class. (You can find a

particularly, ahem, animated discussion on the subject, here: http://thestellaprize.com.au/news/post/the-kind-of-privileged-whiningthat-annoys-the-crap-out-of-me/).

Personally, I felt particularly moved by a note I received from Kate Grenville where she said ‘I am living proof that a women-only prize can be career-changing … The book that won the Orange won no Australian awards and was only shortlisted for one minor prize. After that win my professional life turned around completely — suddenly my books were taken seriously, won prizes and for the first time featured on heavy-duty shortlists (the Booker and the Miles Franklin) … Prizes, unfortunately, do sell books, and for whatever reason, women’s books are consistently overlooked on prize lists.’

So: we set up our committee (member details are on our website www. thestellaprize.com) and began the process of setting up a formal board.

We’ve become a legal entity, and have applied for DGR status so that people who support us can claim us as a tax break. As well, we began to approach various corporations to gauge their interest in working with us – and there has been a lot of interest. But not, as yet, a formal commitment. As Jason Steger pointed out in a recent article in The Age (http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/bookmarks-201201271qlbk.html#ixzz1ktlnvYyC), the Orange prize took four years to get up and running and we’ve only been going for one, so we’re not feeling too despondent.

While we need a major sponsor to run the actual prize, there is no stopping the conversation that’s started, and we’re involved with a series of events across Australia on March 8th, International Women’s Day 2012. Bookshops across Australia – including Avid Reader — will be hosting panel discussions on the topic ‘Is women’s writing different from men’s?’ As well, Stella events will be held at Writers Festivals across Australia including Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane — some of these will be held with the new online magazine The Hoopla (http://thehoopla.com.au/). As well, seed funding is being sought to support the campaign plans, so we can adequately promote this year’s events, and generally keep things moving. We’d love to hear from you if you’re able to help us out — or just have any questions about what we’re doing, drop us an email on thestellaprize@gmail.com.

Sophie Cunningham is a former editor, the author of three books and chair of the Stella Prize Board.

193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU

This year, Avid Reader, and many of our friends and customers are participating in a very interesting project.

OBJECTIVE This challenge hopes to help counteract the gender bias in the reviewing of Australian women’s writing.

CHALLENGE PERIOD 1 January 2012 – 31 December 2012

GOAL Read and review books written by Australian women writers throughout 2012, the National Year of Reading – hard copies, ebooks and audiobooks, new, borrowed or stumbled upon by book-crossing.

Australian Women Writers website and 2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge was created by Elizabeth Lhuede in response to the gender bias debates of 2011, to participate in the National Year of Reading and to raise awareness for The Stella Prize. Since its inception, hundreds of people have signed up to participate in one the challenge levels. It is as easy as promising to read at least three books by Australian Women in 2012. Most of our customers already do this in the course of a year but with this special awareness, and with the website set up so that you can share your thoughts on Australian women writers with others, this has become a fabulous and fun project. We have visited the blog at http://www. australianwomenwriters.com/p/australian-women-writers-bookchallenge_25.html and gathered some information to pass on to you. We hope that some of you will rise to the challenge and enjoy a year of reading some great Australian women writers alongside us.

CHALLENGE LEVELS Casual 3 Stella (read 3 and review at least 2 books) 3 Miles (read 6 and review at least 3)* 3 Franklin-fantastic (read 10 and review at least 4 books)* * The higher levels should include at least one substantial length review Dedicated 3 Set your own goal 3 Combine with another challenge: e.g. Bookdout’s Eclectic Reading Challenge, Booklover Book Reviews’ Aussie Author Challenge, or the GoodReads Aussie Readers’ group’s Aussie Author Challenge with a Twist.

3 WeLove2Read2 Compare the books you read to the Love2Read criteria of the National Year of Reading’s “Our Story” campaign. Are there outstanding books by Australian women that could have been selected? Let us know!

Genre challenges 3 Purist: one genre only 3 Dabbler: more than one genre 3 Devoted eclectic: as many genres as you can read

Authors and guest reviewers: If you’re a published author and wish to do a guest review, you don’t need to sign up for a full reading challenge. Please review a book from a genre other than the one you’re published in and send to elhuede[at] gmail[dot]come along with a short biography and, if relevant, publication date for your next book. You may like to copy and paste a special “Guest Author” badges for your website and link it back to this page. Please add your name to the challenge list.

Some writers have chosen to write “author” — this makes it easy for readers to find you. If you’ve been asked to do a guest review, you can find a special badge here: “Guest Reviewer” A Note on Copyright and sharing: Copyright always stays with the author. However, if you are happy to have others share your book review on their sites as long as the review is attributed to you and a link provided to your website, you might consider tagging it with a Creative Commons licence. There you can obtain a license which restricts commercial use (and they’re free and easy to use). At least one bookshop has expressed interest in finding reader and bookblogger reviews: this would be an easy way of them finding you.

Australian Women Writers Challenge on GoodReads If you don’t have a blog but would like to participate and post reviews, you might consider joining the challenge group on GoodReads.

Twitter Follow @auswomenwriters and post links to your reviews using the #AWW2012 hashtag. Join in AWW on Wednesdays by visiting participants’ blogs, commenting and posting links to your comments on Twitter. For a range of Australian Women Writers on ebooks go to ebooks.avidreader.com.au

Apples and oranges

Sian Campbell

Something one notices when one is passionate about literature and the art of writing is that life is made significantly easier (and not to mention more pleasant) when surrounded by other writers and literary types. As the Avid Readers you are, I’m sure that you already know this to be true.

However, there is a caveat to surrounding oneself with literary types, and that is that when you do, you become required by law to have many heated Intellectual Discussions involving literature and gender, and to make quite sure that you are fulfilling these conditions you are required to have alcohol present at all times to bear witness.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that wine is always flowing at Avid Reader events.

This is not a coincidence.

After the majority of writing or literature lectures and tutorials at any well-established and lawful university are concluded, you’ll notice dutiful students making the pilgrimage to the nearest bar together to discuss Proust and Kafka with great earnest, and subtly key the same names into their iPhone to search in wikipedia later in the privacy of their own home, so that maybe next time they’ll understand what they’ve been talking about.

As I attended one such university myself, I have made this pilgrimage on more than one occasion. It was at one of these drinking sessions Intellectual Discussions that I drunkenly wisely asserted that your gender is of course an integral component of your life experience and as such must naturally and fundamentally inform your writing, causing my friend Fiona to pose the question: But can you really tell if something was written by a man or a woman?

Despite debating the subject well into the evening with the ferocity expected of three writing students, our group of three (two female, one male, all three proud feminists) couldn’t come to an agreement. Fiona had concrete evidence to back her argument up – she’d taken an online quiz of the same nature earlier in the week, asking users to determine whether specific pieces of writing were written by a man or a woman; she had gotten most of the answers wrong. Upon returning home I took the same test myself and will admit to a similar result.

At another of these – I’ll call a spade a spade – drinking sessions, I tentatively expressed my adolescent surprise years ago upon reading that John Marsden, in writing the Tomorrow series, was thoughtful

Patches

by Chloe Reeson

enough to remember that his female protagonists might need to pack some tampons before going off to war.

“Why did that surprise you?” asked Fiona and Tom. “I don’t know,” I replied honestly, “I guess it’s just not something I expected a male writer to think of.” I sounded lame even to myself.

So what do we think is “women’s writing” and what do we think should be left to the literary devices of men? Why do we often presume domesticity to be the domain of women only, and that accounts of bloody wars — either historical or fictional – should only be undertaken by males? Why does this internalized assumption persist despite all evidence to the contrary?

Are women stripping our own gender of its chances of literary acclaim every time we write about a pony or a baby? Are we degrading ourselves when we decide to write Young Adult fiction exclusively, or at all? Should we be writing about child soldiers if we’re not already? If we are, how do we get others to notice? Why is it cool and literary to write about sexy affairs when the author is male, and trashy when we’re the ones wielding the pen? Do we care one way or the other? Should we?

Who can tell? Despite having graduated in December I feel no more qualified to write or even to theorise about writing than I did going into the whole thing, and am still quite often heavily intoxicated. I have, as the outside world leads me to believe, basically graduated with a degree in Absolutely Nothing and as such this has made no change to my daily life and employment status, except I now shower much more infrequently as I have much less reason to leave the house.

Those in charge of the Orange and Stella Prizes have articulated themselves much more eloquently on this subject than I’m capable of, I’m sure; have answered all of the above questions much more succinctly than I could hope to. But if the words of a twenty-three year old broke and smelly female drunkard count for anything: I’d like them to count, please.

I don’t have a niche, and if I were to get off facebook and write a novel right now I don’t know if my protagonists would wield guns or mops. I don’t know, whether in reading these words, you would have been able to tell that I was a young woman if I hadn’t disclosed myself. I don’t know the answer to any of these things. All I know is that I’d like to count.

He would rest r father’s elbows. he ed lov e sh e us beca childhood home. en. She loved them She loved bald m at the back of her dy stu y an og ah m floated of his chair, in the balloon of brandy them on the arms his left hand and a of s er ng fi e d th m at licately fro ders of his co an A cigar dangled de mb the tweed lad cli uld wo e sh r, dy, the hands left for he sweet smell of bran in his right. With no e breathed in the Sh . ns tto ad bu its n rn betwee cked her small he curl up in the cave cologne, as she tu his of ay sw icy sp r head cigar and the ’s chin, securing he rich smoke from his ght tilt of her father sli e Th . ck ne m fe ar ever-w nd his and lt the into the nook of his ped her arms arou ap wr e Sh . ed ed e coat left, e affection she ne that coat. When th on s he in place was all th tc pa ow elb of the tweed to leather, les to that spot of changing textures, remaining soft brist eir th ss ro ac k ee ads, the d brushing her ch loved their bald he the men came an all perfection. She sm e, m sa at th lt she fe them that. smooth, shiny skin, But she never told fa r ther’s elbows. he ed lov e sh y wa

Australian Women Writers Australian women may not be heavily represented in awards, but they are certainly continuing a strong tradition of presenting us with well written, striking, challenging and wonderful books to read.

2011 was a year when some of our most exciting female writers presented us with some of our favourite books of 2011. Here are just a few of our favourites.

All That I Am Anna Funder This was one of Fiona’s favourite books of the year and a really strong contender for any awards that may be given in the future.

The gripping first novel by Anna Funder, the acclaimed author of Stasiland, based on a true story. All That I Am, is moving and beautifully written, equal parts a love story, thriller and testament to individual heroism.

‘When Hitler came to power I was in the bath. The wireless in the living room was turned up loud, but all that drifted down to me were waves of happy cheering, like a football match. It was Monday afternoon’.

Ruth Becker, defiant and cantankerous, is living out her days in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. She has made an uneasy peace with the ghosts of her past — and a part of history that has been all but forgotten.

Another lifetime away, it’s 1939 and the world is going to war. Ernst Toller, self-doubting revolutionary and poet, sits in a New York hotel room settling up the account of his life.

When Toller’s story arrives on Ruth’s doorstep their shared past slips under her defences, and she’s right back among them – those friends who predicted the brutality of the Nazis and gave everything they had to stop them. Those who were tested – and in some cases found wanting — in the face of hatred, of art, of love, and of history.

Based on real people and events, All That I Am is a masterful and exhilarating exploration of bravery and betrayal, of the risks and sacrifices some people make for their beliefs, and of heroism hidden in the most unexpected places. Anna Funder confirms her place as one of our finest writers with this gripping, compassionate, inspiring first novel.

Foal’s Bread Gillian Mears Anna’s pick for Christmas was Gillian Mears’ new work of fiction, Foal’s Bread. Mears has been an Avid favourite for many years with The Grass Sister and The Mint Lawn amongst our favourite books by Australian writers. Mears has been less prolific of late as she has struggled with a debilitating illness. We are very glad that she managed to create this very moving tale.

both tender and unspeakably hard. Written in luminous prose and with an aching affinity for the landscape the book describes, Foal’s Bread is the work of a born writer at the height of her considerable powers.

It is a stunning work of remarkable originality and power, one that confirms Gillian Mears’ reputation as one of our most exciting and acclaimed writers.

Triptych Krissy Kneen Avid Reader is proud to own any book racing out of our literary stable.

Krissy Kneen released her second full length book in 2011 a work of erotic fiction which contains three interlinked stories. Like her previous memoir, there was nothing but praise in the media for this book although there were also a few raised eyebrows. Certainly not for the prudish, but if you want to take a detour into the world of erotica and perversity you must read Triptych.

The people in these stories don’t know each other yet. By the end of Triptych, they will know each other very well indeed.

Transgressive, sardonic, lyrical, comic; irresistibly erotic yet also romantic, Krissy Kneen’s writing has been acclaimed for its fearless honesty. In this suite of linked stories, she addresses taboos of all kinds with a subtle wit and an insistence on sexual pleasure that will delight readers.

Boyer Lectures: The Idea of Home and Caleb’s Crossing Geraldine Brooks Geraldine Brooks published not one but two books in 2011. Many of our bookclub customers, already enamoured by Brooks and her previous novels raced in to buy her new book Caleb’s Crossing.

Her Boyer Lecture was a welcome surprise. Released just in time for Christmas, this book gives us an insight into one of our finest Australian authors.

For the Boyer Lecture 2011, best-selling author and journalist Geraldine Brooks tackles the topic of The Idea of Home. Drawing on her personal experience from being an adolescent pen pal to being a foreign correspondent in some of the worlds most dangerous countries to being a writer of several award winning books including the Pulitzer Prize winner, March, Brooks reflects on what it means to be both a global citizen and a novelist at home in an increasingly fractured world.

The individual lectures are: Our Only Home, A Home on Bland Street, A Writer at Home and At Home in the World.

The sound of horses’ hooves turns hollow on the farms west of Wirri.

If a man can still ride, if he hasn’t totally lost the use of his legs, if he hasn’t died to the part of his heart that understands such things, then he should go for a gallop. At the very least he should stand at the road by the river imagining that he’s pushing a horse up the steep hill that leads to the house on the farm once known as One Tree.

Five Bells Gail Jones

Set in hardscrabble farming country and around the country show high-jumping circuit that prevailed in rural New South Wales prior to the Second World War, Foal’s Bread tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family and their fortunes as dictated by the vicissitudes of the land.

Avid Readers were delighted that although technically published at the very end of 2010, Five Bells by one of our favourites, Gail Jones, went on to become one of our ultimate best sellers for 2011. One of the first novels that Krissy read in 2011, it was a novel that went on to be put on favourites lists right around the country.

It is a love story of impossible beauty and sadness, a chronicle of dreams ‘turned inside out’, and miracles that never last, framed against a world

On a radiant day in Sydney, four people converge on Circular Quay, site of the iconic Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Each of the

193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU

four is haunted by memories of the past: Ellie is preoccupied by her

New Voices

experiences as a girl, James by a tragedy for which he feels responsible,

Avid Reader discovered some wonderful new voices from Australian women in 2011. We loved Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett, a moving story about brothers struggling to survive a harsh family environment in Tasmania. We also loved reading Marieke Hardy’s memoir You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead. To get an overview of established and new women’s voices in literature we delved into Women of Letters curated by Michaela McGuire and Marieke Hardy, a book of letters by Australian women writing to a given subject. The letters are diverse and wonderful, often moving, sometimes revealing and always fascinating and it is a real who’s who of great Australian women. Cory Taylor was a surprise joy for early 2011, such an assured debut novel and one of Krissy’s favourites for the year Me and Mr Booker blew us away with its very human characters and its wry humour. Melbourne author Peggy Frew proved she was a voice to look out for with the accomplished House of Sticks, and feminist and ethicist Leslie Cannold produced her first book of fiction The Book of Rachael which was a recommended read by Avid’s Anna Sheen.

Catherine by the loss of her beloved brother in Dublin and Pei Xing by her imprisonment during China’s Cultural Revolution. Told over the course of a single Saturday, Five Bells describes vividly four lives which chime and resonate. By night-time, when Sydney is drenched in a rainstorm, each life has been transformed.

Animal People Charlotte Wood Acclaimed novelist Charlotte Wood takes a character from her bestselling book The Children and turns her unflinching gaze on him and his world in her extraordinary novel, Animal People. Set in Sydney over a single day, Animal People traces a watershed day in the life of Stephen, aimless, unhappy, unfulfilled — and without a clue as to how to make his life better.

His dead-end job, his demanding family, his oppressive feelings for Fiona and the pitiless city itself... the great weight of it all threatens to come crashing down on him. The day will bring untold surprises and disasters, but will also show him -—perhaps too late — that only love can set him free.

Sharply observed, hilarious, tender and heartbreaking, Animal People is a portrait of urban life, a meditation on the conflicted nature of human-animal relationships, and a masterpiece of storytelling. Filled with shocks of recognition and revelation, it shows a writer of great depth and compassion at work.

A Common Loss Kirsten Tranter They were originally five.

Elliot. Brian. Tallis. Cameron. And Dylan — charismatic Dylan — the mediator, the leader, the man each one turned to in a time of crisis.

Five close friends, bonded in college, still coming together for their annual trip to Las Vegas.

This year they are four. Four friends, sharing a common loss: Dylans tragic death. A common loss that, upon their arrival in Vegas, will bring with it a common threat: one that will make them question who their departed friend really was, and whether he is even worthy of their grief.

A Common Loss is Kirsten Tranters follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut, The Legacy. Yet again, Tranter’s weave of watertight prose and literary sensibilities shows her to be a born writer with a precocious control of storytelling and style.

The Books We Are Looking Forward To. It is always exciting to look forward to a book by one of your favourite authors and this year, with Australian women firmly front and centre in our consciousness, Avid staff are eagerly anticipating books by some of our favourites.

Anita Heiss will finally be releasing her much anticipated memoir Am I Black Enough For You. We are completely breathless with excitement.

Belinda Jeffrey’s follow up to Brown Skin Blue, One Long Thread is another book that has been haunting us for ages. We are so excited to be launching it and expect it will be amongst our best sellers for 2012. Trent and Krissy have been wrestling over Margo Lanagan’s Sea Hearts such a gorgeous literary read that also has Trent excited about the fantasy elements. Avid’s own Anna Krien has a quarterly essay due very soon. Her treatise about the relationship between humans and animals will be up for all the awards in the coming year. Watch out also for Sonya Hartnett’s new children’s book Children of the King and books by some of our favourite short story writers including Paddy O’Reilly and Josephine Rowe and a novel by much loved short story writer Romy Ash that Chris Currie describes as one of the best debut novels he has ever read. The wonderful Drusilla Modjeska has her very first novel coming out in 2012. The Mountain will be released in May and we love everything she has ever done so no doubt this novel will not disappoint.

Another name on everyone’s lips is M. L. Steadman, an Australian women writer who has set off a furious bidding war overseas with many publishers vying for the rights to publish her debut novel The Light Between the Oceans. Avid’s Anna just loved it.

Rumours abound about other novels to look out for by great Australian women, many of these unconfirmed but we can confirm right now that Avid’s Krissy Kneen has been contracted to write another book, Abstinence that is due to be published in 2013 and another favourite of ours, Kristina Olsson has finished a wonderful memoir that Avid is very excited about so look out for that one too.

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FOOD Fiona Stager

It’s a warm Sunday afternoon, a few weeks before Christmas and some of the local households have decided to gather for drinks on the footpath.

It’s not a street party, that happened earlier in the month. This is one of those spontaneous gatherings which involve dragging some old chairs onto the footpath and into the shade of the leopard tree. A makeshift table is set up, a bucket of chalk is tipped onto the pavement and a skipping rope dragged out.

But as we need to wait for the sun to go down there is enough time for next-door Grace and I to make some cheese scones. Scones were the first thing I learnt to cook as a young girl, a perfect recipe to share with a five year old.

As we find the recipe (page 153 of Mix & Bake by Belinda Jeffrey) I realise why scones are so good for the trainee baker. The few ingredients are cheap and always in the pantry, you only need one bowl, there is no creaming of butter and sugar, no eggs to separate or ingredients to be folded and scones cook quickly.

So as Grace sifts 1 3/4 cups of flour, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of dry mustard powder and rubs in 60 grams of butter, I grate 1 1/4 cups of old cheese bits and add 1/2 cup of milk. And we chat. Her mother is expecting a new baby. We assume it’s going to be a girl and come up with names. Maybe Rainbow, Purple or even Fiona!* We talk about our favourite fruit and colour and she tells me about her adventures with Silvie, her friend who lives around the corner.

Scones need a hot oven, a light touch and cold butter. Warm the baking tray first, don’t over mix and don’t over knead. Belinda Jeffrey says when you are cutting out the scones, try to stamp them and not twist the cutter too much otherwise they bake lopsided and snuggle them closely together on the tray. Try Lemonade Scones, Pumpkin and Date Scones or Strawberry Jam Snails. Freshly baked scones need to be wrapped in a clean tea towel. It’s a rule. Serve with butter, peach chutney, cheese or the very best jam.

Grace and I set the timer for twenty minutes and we head out to the footpath. The sun has dropped, people stop on their way to the park.

Aphrodite pops by, Oliver squeezes the cat and Ruby the dog cleans up any food dropped.

Grace presents the scones and they seem to go equally well with either beer or sav blanc. *It’s a girl called Rose.

Mix and Bake by Belinda Jeffrey ($39.95) is one of the best baking books we sell. Jeffrey includes clear instructions, inspiring photos and helpful hints like: “where cakes are studded with fruit (or nuts and chocolate chunks for that matter) it’s always a good idea to toss the fruit in a little of the flour in the recipe before adding it to the batter.”

FILM Jason Reed

Five Females of Film Women in film often don’t get the same recognition, publicity or attention as their male counterparts. However, they work as hard or harder to craft amazing films. Whether they are in front or behind the camera or have written the screenplay, the following women have all left an indelible mark on cinema. Of course this is by no means an exhaustive list, nor does it attempt to be definitive. Rather, these five women have been inspirational in what they have achieved.

Juliette Binoche is elegant, talented and smart. She is also one of the most beautiful women to be immortalised on film. She graced the screen in Michael Haneke’s thriller Cache (Hidden), the delicious Chocolat, the lesser known but very steamy The Horseman on the Roof, The Three Colours trilogy and of course The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

However, it is a more recent offering that has become one of my all time favourites that I want to recommend. Certified Copy is both superbly directed and acted and is equal parts subtle, clever and surprising.

Kate Winslet is incredibly well known and regarded. It’s easy to see why with films like Contagion, Carnage, the devastatingly beautiful Revolutionary Road, The Reader, Little Children, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Holy Smoke and of course a little film called Titatnic.

Not to mention her hilarious episode of Extras when she played a nun.

She also rescued Richard Branson’s mother from a burning building. She has an authenticity and rawness to her performance that resonates with audiences and makes her unforgettable.

Debra Granik may not be a name you know, however she co-wrote and directed the gritty Winters Bone, which was only her second feature film.

It earned four Oscar nominations, including best film and best adapted screenplay. She captured the bleakness of Daniel Woodrell’s book exquisitely, as well as the many complex layers of its unflinching protagonist Ree, to create a chilling and powerful film.

Lisa Cholodenko is the co-writer and director of The Kids Are All Right, easily one of the funniest and most touching films to be released that year. The film earned four Oscar nominations including best picture and best original screenplay. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore play the lead roles and are two incredible women in their own right. If that wasn’t enough, Cholodenko is also responsible for the 1998 drama High Art, starring Australian actress Radha Mitchell and is currently adapting Tom Perotta’s novel The Abstinence Teacher.

Kimberley Peirce has co-written and directed just two features, Boys Don’t Cry and more recently Stop Loss. Both are powerful films about topics that Peirce is clearly passionate about. Not one to mince her words, she is unapologetically outspoken on the topic of censorship, appearing in Kirby Dick’s fascinating expose of the MPAA This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated. To find a filmmaker with strong, uncompromising beliefs is always rewarding, whether they are male or female. I only hope it is not another nine years before her next film.

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TRAVEL Kári Gíslason

MUSIC James Butler

Road Markers

On New Albums and Old Ideas

Just after midnight on September 18, 1961, a plane carrying the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold and fifteen others crashed into woodland outside Ndola, a city in the Copperbelt region of what is now Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia. Most on board died instantly, and it seems Hammarskjold survived only long enough to clasp at a tuft of grass, which he still held in his fist when his body was discovered later that day.

The comeback album is a precarious beast. Sometimes we love an artist so much, feel that their work is already so sacred, that anything further is superfluous. Sometimes it is plainly obvious that an artist’s primary reason to make new work or tour again is for financial gain. This makes us like them less. (Take note, John Farnham.) And sometimes a comeback feels like a gamble, there is a part of us that worries an artist could be jeopardising a perfect body of work — like Lou Reed’s 2011 collaboration with Metallica, known to me as ‘The Album That Shall Not Be Named’.

Hammarskjold had been a religious man, and during his travels carried with him a copy of the New Testament, a companion, if you like, to the UN General Charter that was also in his briefcase. On this particular trip, he also brought a copy of Martin Buber’s I and Thou, which Hammarskjold was translating into Swedish, his mother tongue. Buber’s work relates religious experience to our relationships with others, with nature, and with works of art. That is, the act of ‘meeting’ others is conceived as a central part of our relationship with God. In the note that accompanied his own personal reflections, Hammarskjold used a different metaphor. Ever the bureaucrat, he called his Vagmarken (literally, ‘road markers’) a ‘sort of White Book concerning my negotiations with myself – and with God.’ I bought my copy of his White Book, or more precisely Auden and Sjoberg’s translation of it, in December 1991, in the middle of what would be prove to be a rather long spell as a serious young man. At the end of it, I returned Markings to the bookshelf and for ten years more or less forgot about it.

Then, in 2009, I found myself at a conference dinner at Uppsala Castle, about an hour’s drive north of Stockholm. At the start of dinner, the maitre d’ gave a lecture about the hall in which we were seated. He said, ‘I’m afraid that for some time this room ran into disuse, and became something of a storage area for all the bits and pieces that accrue in an old Castle. But the Governor, who lived in one of the wings, would clear a space in the middle for his son to play tennis. Some of you have probably guessed who I’m talking about. It was Dag Hammarskjold.’

Although barely a comeback album, his last studio album was released only eight years ago, that particular fear caused me to approach Leonard Cohen’s latest album, Old Ideas, with a sense of trepidation. While I could never call myself a devoted fan, I still regard Cohen’s baritone croon as legendary. His songwriting is genius. His lyrics are poetry. And yet I still harboured a fear that he might slip.

Old Ideas is an apt name for this album. Cohen revisits the material he has sung of before, mainly love, religion, sex and depression, and it is as potent and reverberant as ever — but this time something in the delivery feels a little different. I was expecting a return of Cohen’s unique voice, but the instrumentation on Old Ideas overcrowds and leaves that voice swamped. While I was used to hearing Cohen accompanied only by an acoustic guitar — and there is that here, ‘Show Me the Place’ and ‘Crazy to Love You’ are both simple and inspired — the addition of a four piece band, banjo, organ and violin seems over the top. And don’t get me started on the too-in-tune back-up singers, their choral at the opening of ‘Come Healing’ reminds one of a Hi-5 Christmas carol.

But this point withstanding, the comeback question still begs: does Old Ideas disappoint? I don’t think so. It still has the mark of a master songwriter, a well-versed poet, and a great musician — I just wish Cohen’s Old Ideas were delivered with a little more of Cohen’s old style.

I joined in the collective sigh, but I’m afraid I hadn’t guessed. Instead, it hit me with all the suddenness of a chance meeting with an old friend. It also produced such a powerful feeling of recognition that I decided more or less on the spot to start looking for Dag Hammarskjold again. I would revisit Markings and visit some of the road markers that had informed its composition.

And that’s why last year I ended up in Zambia, at the crash site memorial, on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. I spoke to one of the locals who’d found his body, and seen the grass that was still held in his fist. And I began to talk to members of a community who, unlike me, had never stopped thinking of Hammarskjold. Perhaps I hadn’t either: you can’t entirely forget what’s still on your bookshelf. But in any case there were plenty of people to meet, new friends who could re-introduce me to the old.

193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU

SEX Krissy Kneen

I have immersed myself in sex. I am reading it, writing it, listening to it on audio book, not the noises of sex (as one might listen to whale songs or the chirrup of dolphins), but the classic books about it. I have read many books about sex in the past, but always for pleasure and never with a view to becoming an expert in classic sex literature, but this year I have a deadline to deliver a novel that references the great works of the genre. The first task then has been to identify the great works. This is no easy task. The list is quite extensive.

I had the basics down. I had read Nin’s Delta of Venus and Little Birds and some novels by Georges Bataille. I had read Reage’s The Story of O and Nicholson Baker’s Vox and a pile of sexual memoirs that I dipped into when I was writing my own. But if you begin to lift the lid of the genre then you realise you have discovered a veritable Pandora’s Box of terrors and delights. I hadn’t, for example continued my initial struggles with de Sade who I found stuffy in his language and a little pointed in his relentless pursuit of transgression.

I had opened Fanny Hill and backed quickly away from the pomp and powder of the age in which it was written. We all have our particular tastes. That is what I have been discovering for myself. Some of the classic sex books capture my imagination immediately and some leave me a little cold, and dare I say it, dry.

I am beginning to discover that for me, use of language is more important than the plot. I am aroused by the placement of words, the flow of sentences, the hint of broader themes lying just beyond the bodily delights. Some of the less physical of the classic texts are actually more sensual. James Salter for instance woos us into submission with his relentless longing in A Sport and a Pastime.

Young Adam a book by Alexander Trocchi which has an unsettling sexual undercurrent led me to discover his more traditionally sexual works each equally disturbing and arousing. My favourite discovery so far has been Yusinari Kawabata, a Nobel Prize winning Japanese author whose novella The House of the Sleeping Beauties is a mesmerising treatise on sex, death and aging and clearly the cornerstone for Julia Leigh’s Australian film Sleeping Beauty.

It is a novella about sex and yet there are no actual descriptions of the act itself. Set in a kind of brothel where old men pay to sleep beside the naked drugged and sleeping bodies of young girls, the protagonist struggles with his nostalgia for lost youth, his own encroaching impotence, the idea of death and his memories of sex.

There are hints of sexuality in the book, the text is infused with it, and yet the sparse prose leaves the details of it completely up to the reader. It is our job as reader to describe the details of the sex in the theater of our imaginations. The book is perhaps more potent because of what remains unsaid. It is a book that continues to haunt me even as I move on from the reading of it. I am now discovering the lewdness of Felix Salten’s The Memoirs of Josephine Mutzenbacher and enjoying the fact that Salten was the author of one of my childhood favourites, Bambi which was turned into a very wholesome Disney animated film. It is these simple juxtapositionings that bring me the most pleasure in my strange and varied research.

Sometimes, reading sex book after sex book, I become immune to the descriptions of genitals. What is left is the sensuality of language, the rythm of it, the blowsy beauty of a string of words slipped together by a skilled craftsperson. Kawabata is a master of it. Anais Nin has flashes of brilliance. Salter leaves you breathless. Nicholson Barker manages it with a playful wink and I am facing Nabokov’s longest and most complex work, Ador and Ardor, with trepidation. It is a sex epic that has been likened to Ulysses and hefting it around in my handbag and struggling with the clever but incredibly complex wordplay I can see why. I am just at the beginning of my year of reading and there is still so much to discover, but even at this early stage I feel inspired to put some of these books in your hands, fellow readers. Stick with me and I will hand you some rare gems indeed.

193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU

Anthony Mullins

Moving in to the online ebook environment has been an interesting evolution for us as booksellers and to date we have had a great response from customers. Avid Reader works with Inventive Labs, a young independent Melbourne based technology company who developed Booki.sh, our ebookshop platform. Inventive Labs share our values and love of books and in 2012 we look forward to bringing you a greater selection of titles from an increasing list of great Australian and international publishers.

With Booki.sh all you need is a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone with a current web browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox etc.) to open your own ebook library. There is no need to install applications or files. All your ebooks are also available offline. The database of ebooks grows daily and the Booki.sh search facility is simple to use.

You can also search for free ebooks and add them to your library.

Have a browse at any time of the day at ebooks.avidreader.com.au

Ebook Pricing There are two models for pricing ebooks with both determined by publishers. Firstly, an Agency Model where recommended retail prices are fixed by the publisher and no discounting can be applied by the eretailer. Under this model you will find all eretailers should have the same price for a title except Amazon which, for Australian titles, is currently slightly more expensive.

Secondly, the Wholesale Model where publishers set the price (normally a higher price than the Agency Model) but they allow for eretailers to discount titles at their discretion. Under this model there can be a large difference between eretailers in the price of a book. In most cases Avid Reader cannot discount to the extent that the multi-national eretailers can as we are provided a far less margin on our stock or the multi-national eretailer is prepared to lose money on the sale of a particular title. We regularly do cost comparisons and try to be within the ball park on many titles but this is not always the case.

As you would expect we prefer the Agency Model as this puts all eretailers on a level playing field (in the US Amazon has filed a lawsuit against Apple and five major publishers which, in part, seeks an injunction against pricing ebooks with the Agency Model) however, we do understand that the Wholesale Model provides customers with cheaper options then we can match.

If you would like to know more about ebooks join our mailing list or watch out for details on regular monthly ebook information nights.

Kevin Guy is in charge of ebooks at Avid Reader.

e?

In July 2011 we conducted an online survey with customers about ebooks. With over 200 responses it was clear that a significant percentage of customers were either currently reading or intended to read ebooks in the near future and that they would like to purchase ebooks from Avid Reader.

Friend or Fo

App l

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e

o ks A u t h o B i o ’s

In January, Apple released iBook Author, an application that would allow authors to create their own interactive ebooks for free.

With Apple’s success in transforming the music industry, their sights are now trained on book publishing. With the iPad at the centre, Apple is hoping to create a technological ecosystem that would challenge traditional publishing. Using iBooks Author, writers can inexpensively create and publish attractive ebooks that can also be interactive.

But there’s a catch. And for many it’s a deal breaker.

Basically, if you make an ebook using iBook Author you can’t sell it anywhere but Apple’s iBook Store. If you want to sell it somewhere else you’ll need to remake it in another ebook format (ePub, PDF, Kindle, etc). Bummer.

For some people this sucks but I think there are a lot of upsides to what Apple is doing. eBooks are a new form – exploring their interactive potential has barely begun. To get there, ebooks need lots and lots of really smart people to begin innovating to discover what’s possible.

Apple is giving authors (the smartest people) a tool to do this with. For free. They can start today. With few skills, minimal outlay and no publisher in place. They still own all the ideas and the execution. Sure their time is worth something but most books are already written virtually on spec by dedicated writers (even established ones).

The upside for Apple is it introduces authors to the iPad and iBooks Author. But it doesn’t lock authors in. After experimenting they can still sell their ideas to the highest bidder.

What I’m hoping is we’ll see a wave of experimentation on the back of iBook Author lead by authors, the people who love books the most. The only question is, do authors want to change what a book is? But that’s for another discussion.

Anthony Mullins is an award winning writer/director of short film and documentaries. He is currently the creative director at Hoodlum Entertainment.

193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU

March – April Events RSVP essential for all events 38463422 events@avidreader.com.au or on our website at www.avidreader.com.au Stella Awards discussion night, International Women’s Day and our magazine launch Thursday 8 March 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Free Event Join author Krissy Kneen as she hosts a panel consisting of Susan Johnson, Mary Philip, Benjamin Law and Mary-Rose MacColl as they discuss the creation of a new literary award specifically designed to celebrate Australian Women Writers.

Should there be a Stella Award? Why do we need a focus on women writers?

Edwina Shaw Thrill Seekers Friday 9 March, 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Free Event Thrill Seekers is a hard-hitting account of growing up on the wrong side of the tracks and the dangers of too much partying, much too young from Brisbane-based author Edwina Shaw.

Anna Krien Us and Them: The Importance of Animals — Quarterly Essay A special Radio National recording with Paul Barclay

Wednesday 21 March, 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Free Event For the first time in history, humans sit unchallenged at the top of the food chain. As we encroach on the wild and a vast wave of extinctions gathers force, how has our relationship to animals changed?

In this dazzling piece of reportage, Anna Krien investigates the contemporary animal kingdom and our place in it. From pets to food, from wildness to science experiments, Krien also reveals how animals are faring in this new world order. Examples range from the joyful to the deeply unsettling.

Loani Prior How Tea Cosies Changed the World Thursday 22 March , 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Free Event Be drawn into a world of creative passion with “How Tea Cosies Changed the World” — Loani Prior’s fantastic follow-up to “Really Wild Tea Cosies”. Loani’s outrageous imagination has produced 24 vibrant new designs that transform the conventional tea cosy into a knitted piece of art.

Belinda Jeffrey One Long Thread Friday 23 March, 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Free Event Ruby and Sally Moon are twins, cut from the same cloth but as different as night and day. While Sally is bold and adventurous, Ruby is quiet and creative.

When divorce splits their family in two, and Sally moves with their mother to the Northern Territory, Ruby holds onto the thought that one day her family will be complete again.

Come and join us to celebrate the latest release of celebrated storyteller and Avid Reader family member, Belinda Jeffrey.

Tania McCartney Beijing Tai Tai Tuesday 27 March, 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Tickets $5 ‘Beijing Tai Tai’ is a collection of witty observations on Beijing expat life, from a mother, wife and woman intent on capturing her love-hate affair with China. Intensely personal, at times a little controversial, it’s a rollercoaster ride of honesty and openness as a mother and wife (tai tai) juggles suburban family life in urban Beijing. It’s a book about bad hair and silk markets as much as it is about China’s quest to stay true to its ancient origins, while the world sucks this complicated country headlong into the future.

Anita Heiss Am I Black Enough For You? A special Radio National recording with Paul Barclay

Friday 30 March, 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Free Event The story of an urban-based high achieving Aboriginal woman working to break down stereotypes and build bridges between black and white Australia.

Lyndy Milan Taste of Greece Monday 2 April, 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Free Event Lyndey & Blair’s Taste of Greece, was sold to SBS Television in 2011 and aired to rave reviews on SBS One from May to July. The series follows Lyndey and Blair, Lyndey’s late actor/voice-over artist son and co-host, as they tour the fascinating Peloponnese seeking culinary delights, adventure and antiquities.

Lyndey Milan is one of Australia’s most recognised food, wine and lifestyle personalities with a career spanning over 25 years across most TV and radio networks and publishing houses. Her forté is presenting seemingly complicated ideas in an easy, straight-forward and entertaining manner.

Special salon with Sonya Harnett The Children of The King A special Radio National Recording with Kate Evans

Thursday 5 April, 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Tickets $5 Three children have been sent to live in the countryside, safe from the war in London. When they find two boys hiding in a castle, the past and future come together to make an extraordinary adventure.

Opening Hours Monday 8:30 am – 8:30 pm Tuesday 8:30 am – 8:30 pm Wednesday 8:30 am – 8:30 pm Thursday 8:30 am – 8:30 pm Friday 8:30 am – 8:30 pm Saturday 8:30 am – 6:00 pm Sunday 8:30 am – 5:00 pm Open most public holidays

Mailing List Keen for the latest news in books? Want to know which authors will be coming to town next? Interested in free movie passes and preview tickets? Then subscribe to Avid Reader’s e-newsletter mailing list. E-news subscribers are also invited to our famous, members-only 20%-offthe-entire-store sales (which include wine and cheese!), and the first to know about our special offers. Subscribe via our website www.avidreader.com.au Click subscribe and follow the prompts. Become our Facebook friend as well and you will get very special offers exclusive to Facebook friends.

A hauntingly beautiful story from one of Australia’s most acclaimed writers for adults and children.

Nikki McWatters One Way Or Another To be launched by Benjamin Law

Friday 20 April , 6pm for a 6.30pm start, Free Event One Way or Another is a rollicking ride through a world of pub rock, big hair, wild nights and mornings after. With irrepressible humour and a bulging little black book, Nikki McWatters recalls an age when everything seemed possible – even if everything wasn’t such a good idea.

Overlords Fiona Stager & Kevin Guy Bookish Underlings Krissy, Anna, Christopher, Kasia, Verdi, Trent, Emily, Nellie-Mae, Helen, Sarah, James, Darcy and Jack.

Café Stuart, Verdi, Tara, Cass and Kate.

193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU